UNSRCT Drones Inquiry

Produced for the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights, this platform presents a spatial analysis and visualization tool focused on civilian casualties of drone strikes.

Explore the platform here:
http://unsrct-drones.situplatform.com

Collaborators

Forensic Architecture, Chris Cobb-Smith

Client

Ben Emmerson
UN Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights

Location

Afghanistan, Gaza, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Completion

2014

In collaboration with Forensic Architecture, SITU Research has been working with United Nations Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights, Ben Emmerson. On March 11, 2014, the Special Rapporteur presented a final report to the United Nations that addresses the impact of drone strikes on civilians and the issues of government transparency and drone strike documentation. SITU’s role was to provide spatial analysis for the inquiry into civilian casualties by drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Gaza. The project seeks to map, model and visually animate the aftermath of drone strikes, placing a specific emphasis on the damage that these strikes actually do on the ground.

The interactive online platform locates 30 drone strikes that were investigated by the UNSRCT and concurrently provides a summary of the data associated with each strike.

A series of visualizations made in collaboration with Forensic Architecture have been made into videos that reveal additional information about significant drone strikes. Various types of media were cross referenced such as photographs, interviews and satellite imagery, in order to provide architectural analyses for these specific drone strikes.